Recently, there is a concern about influences of global warming and air pollution due to carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (NOX), suspended particulate matters (PM), and the like contained in exhaust gases of vehicles. Therefore, there is an increasing attention to a fuel cell-powered vehicle (FCV) driven by utilizing electric energy based on chemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen with a loaded fuel cell instead of the conventional gasoline internal combustion engine type vehicle.
The fuel cell-powered vehicle neither discharges carbon dioxide described above nor discharges other harmful substances. With excellent energy efficiency in comparison to the gasoline internal combustion engine type vehicle and the like, the fuel cell-powered vehicle has various advantages that are not provided in the gasoline internal combustion engine type vehicle.
When broadly divided, the fuel cell-powered vehicle includes a type of supplying hydrogen from a hydrogen station and a type of supplying fuel other than hydrogen and manufacturing hydrogen by an in-vehicle reformer. From an effect of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) and the like, the former type is regarded as more advantageous. Therefore, there is an urgent need for researching and developing the fuel cell-powered vehicle and the hydrogen station for supplying hydrogen to the vehicle.
A filling system station disclosed in Patent Document 1 includes two buffer containers and a compressor. The buffer containers and the compressor are respectively connected to a supply line connected to a tank of a vehicle. At the time of filling the tank with a gas, the gas is respectively supplied from the buffer containers and the compressor via the supply line at the same time.
Patent Document 2 discloses a method in which at the time of filling a tank with a gas, a pressurized gas is firstly and instantaneously blown in, the internal pressure of the tank is measured, and the tank is filled with the gas while controlling pressure increase speed of the tank.